vivek.saikia
Active Member
Hi All,
With the Pune weather becoming absolutely pleasant with the onset of Monsoon, I decided (not)work from home this Friday. With my wife at work and with me left all alone with little work at hand, I started to feel certain urges. Don't get me wrong here, I am purely talking about DIY urges here (Gotcha!!
). As they say, Empty mind devil's workshop or rather a free DIYer new project, I started to fantasize about certain plausible projects which I can make using my very limited resources and skills. My sight got hold of the tiny laptop speakers in front of me and I sighed how "close" they sound, just then the idea hit me - "Why not build an open baffle horn speakers!!". I had always fantasized about the open baffles and the Horn loaded speakers but never had a chance to listen to any. Restricted by my limited material resources and skills, I thought about a simplest DIY project using the common objects lying around me.
I tore apart a cardboard box and cut out the parts for shaping the horns. The WIP pictures are as follows:
I took apart my poratble laptop speakers and took out the tiny 2 Inch wideband drivers. I kept them connected to their USB powered amplifier which pumps out about 5 watts of power to both of the speakers.
Finally, the completed horn looked like this
I attached the speakers to the horn and played some music through my laptop and the sound which came out of these tiny speakers was quite impressive! I got the first taste of open baffle and horn! The sound was quite different from the conventional boxy sound and it was very open without any compressions. The right word to describe the sound would be "natural". The lower end was nothing great but the midrange was something which really amazed me. Eventhough size of the speakers is only 2 Inches but they were sounding quite larger than their size. The speakers seemed to have certain affinity towards female voices, acoustic and percussion instruments as these sounded so smooth and lifelike. The higher end also was very well defined without any harsh sound. The lower end was, as I already mentioned, was nothing great but was just adequate (considering the size of the drivers). I could hear the foot of the drums in my 22x13 sq ft hall which itself was an achivement for these speakers!
The cello of Zoe Keating, the claps and whistles in the live performance recordings, the Tabla, the lead and acoustic guitar, the voice of Enya sounded so nice and soothing to my ears.
So, just by spending 15 mins of my time on the build, I had made something which I totally enjoyed. And the pleasure which I got from these speakers.....priceless.
I even shot a video of the horn speakers in action using my Nokia E61i which failed me totally. The video as well as the audio didn't came out as well and the real sound was not captured well. Sigh! my DSLR doesn't do video :sad: Anyways, I have uploaded the video on youtube, you can check out the same below. Really sorry about the lousy video quality and low volume. Blame it on my Nokia mobile.
YouTube - DIY horn open baffle speakers‏
After totally enjoying the horn/open baffle sound, I thought of checking out the efect of these horns on my Wharfy bookshelves. I attached the horns on the tweeter using duct tapes and played some music through my laptop. This is when I realized the true potential of these horns!
This time the sound really blown me away. I had never heard such well defined sound from my Wharfedale speakers before! The higher frequencies became silky smooth and all the sibilance was gone. The Hi freq were so well defined and I started to hear each and every details of the music which was earlier getting chocked by the midrange and bass. The ill effect of diffraction was gone.
The NAD-Wharfedale combination is a fairly laidback system but addition of these horns totally changed that sound signature. Now it sounds quite neutral without being overtly bright or harsh. My ears have a tendency to ache if I hear something harsh or bright sound, it's a defect. But this setup is sounding so musical and soothing to my ears and I am totally enjoying the "new" sound now. The sound has the "live performance" effect without being harsh or bright. Now, there is a throw in the singer's voice and the chimes sounds so lifelike. The thinness of the Cymbals is gone and is now replaced by a full bodied sound. Now I would even like to claim that I can now hear the drumsticks hitting the snare/crash cymbals/ride cymbals. Plucking of the guitar string is still giving me shivers, as I am writing this port. I have been revisiting my entire music collection after this newfound "Sound". No wonder, my system is ON day and night and I am completely immersed in music for the last two days.
If you have a laidback system and would like to listen to the finer details in the music then I would totally suggest you to try out this tweak. This will absolutely work for you without spending anything, just your 15 mins.
One surprising thing which I have noticed is that the midrange has also improved to quite an extent. The only plausible scientific explanation I can think of for this is that the horn is acting as a big cone which is being excited by the vibrations emmited by the midrange driver.
Word of caution though, the WAF of these horns is totally zero and you will have to face constant nagging/ranting from your better half all the time. But I agree, they look utterly ugly. But who will make her understand the happiness I am getting out of them
hyeah:
Finally, I would reiterate, my this little prototyping experiment turned out extremely successful and now I know that in future if I ever think of building a DIY speaker then I will definitely try out these open baffle/horns, may be using a Fostex 8 Incher and bigger horns :clapping:
Happy DIY'ing!
With the Pune weather becoming absolutely pleasant with the onset of Monsoon, I decided (not)work from home this Friday. With my wife at work and with me left all alone with little work at hand, I started to feel certain urges. Don't get me wrong here, I am purely talking about DIY urges here (Gotcha!!
). As they say, Empty mind devil's workshop or rather a free DIYer new project, I started to fantasize about certain plausible projects which I can make using my very limited resources and skills. My sight got hold of the tiny laptop speakers in front of me and I sighed how "close" they sound, just then the idea hit me - "Why not build an open baffle horn speakers!!". I had always fantasized about the open baffles and the Horn loaded speakers but never had a chance to listen to any. Restricted by my limited material resources and skills, I thought about a simplest DIY project using the common objects lying around me. I tore apart a cardboard box and cut out the parts for shaping the horns. The WIP pictures are as follows:
I took apart my poratble laptop speakers and took out the tiny 2 Inch wideband drivers. I kept them connected to their USB powered amplifier which pumps out about 5 watts of power to both of the speakers.
Finally, the completed horn looked like this
I attached the speakers to the horn and played some music through my laptop and the sound which came out of these tiny speakers was quite impressive! I got the first taste of open baffle and horn! The sound was quite different from the conventional boxy sound and it was very open without any compressions. The right word to describe the sound would be "natural". The lower end was nothing great but the midrange was something which really amazed me. Eventhough size of the speakers is only 2 Inches but they were sounding quite larger than their size. The speakers seemed to have certain affinity towards female voices, acoustic and percussion instruments as these sounded so smooth and lifelike. The higher end also was very well defined without any harsh sound. The lower end was, as I already mentioned, was nothing great but was just adequate (considering the size of the drivers). I could hear the foot of the drums in my 22x13 sq ft hall which itself was an achivement for these speakers!
The cello of Zoe Keating, the claps and whistles in the live performance recordings, the Tabla, the lead and acoustic guitar, the voice of Enya sounded so nice and soothing to my ears.
So, just by spending 15 mins of my time on the build, I had made something which I totally enjoyed. And the pleasure which I got from these speakers.....priceless.
I even shot a video of the horn speakers in action using my Nokia E61i which failed me totally. The video as well as the audio didn't came out as well and the real sound was not captured well. Sigh! my DSLR doesn't do video :sad: Anyways, I have uploaded the video on youtube, you can check out the same below. Really sorry about the lousy video quality and low volume. Blame it on my Nokia mobile.
YouTube - DIY horn open baffle speakers‏
After totally enjoying the horn/open baffle sound, I thought of checking out the efect of these horns on my Wharfy bookshelves. I attached the horns on the tweeter using duct tapes and played some music through my laptop. This is when I realized the true potential of these horns!
This time the sound really blown me away. I had never heard such well defined sound from my Wharfedale speakers before! The higher frequencies became silky smooth and all the sibilance was gone. The Hi freq were so well defined and I started to hear each and every details of the music which was earlier getting chocked by the midrange and bass. The ill effect of diffraction was gone.
The NAD-Wharfedale combination is a fairly laidback system but addition of these horns totally changed that sound signature. Now it sounds quite neutral without being overtly bright or harsh. My ears have a tendency to ache if I hear something harsh or bright sound, it's a defect. But this setup is sounding so musical and soothing to my ears and I am totally enjoying the "new" sound now. The sound has the "live performance" effect without being harsh or bright. Now, there is a throw in the singer's voice and the chimes sounds so lifelike. The thinness of the Cymbals is gone and is now replaced by a full bodied sound. Now I would even like to claim that I can now hear the drumsticks hitting the snare/crash cymbals/ride cymbals. Plucking of the guitar string is still giving me shivers, as I am writing this port. I have been revisiting my entire music collection after this newfound "Sound". No wonder, my system is ON day and night and I am completely immersed in music for the last two days.
If you have a laidback system and would like to listen to the finer details in the music then I would totally suggest you to try out this tweak. This will absolutely work for you without spending anything, just your 15 mins.
One surprising thing which I have noticed is that the midrange has also improved to quite an extent. The only plausible scientific explanation I can think of for this is that the horn is acting as a big cone which is being excited by the vibrations emmited by the midrange driver.
Word of caution though, the WAF of these horns is totally zero and you will have to face constant nagging/ranting from your better half all the time. But I agree, they look utterly ugly. But who will make her understand the happiness I am getting out of them
hyeah:Finally, I would reiterate, my this little prototyping experiment turned out extremely successful and now I know that in future if I ever think of building a DIY speaker then I will definitely try out these open baffle/horns, may be using a Fostex 8 Incher and bigger horns :clapping:
Happy DIY'ing!
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